Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Dec 1948

Vol. 113 No. 6

Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment Debate-Price of Oats.

Mr. Aiken

Last week a number of Deputies in this House, including myself, spent a week-end in the country. I proceeded to Donegal through my own constituency of County Louth, and there I met a number of people who were interested in the price of oats. A number of farmers in County Louth have oats to sell, and, notwithstanding the hints thrown out recently by the deputy Minister for Agriculture when he got his chief's back turned, that he was going to buy oats, nothing happened up to last Saturday in County Louth. A number of farmers have been in this condition for the past couple of months: that the bills for conacre are due and that they have oats to sell which they cannot sell at a price which could cover the rent they paid for the land, for the seed and for their hired labour, not to speak of their own labour. When I reached Donegal, I was shown a paper with three advertisements in it almost a foot square, offering to pay the East Donegal farmers 2/- per stone, or 28/- per barrel for oats. When I came home, I searched all the local papers I could get my hands on, and in no paper from Kilkenny, Wexford, Cork or Kerry did I find any such advertisement. The East Donegal farmers were offered 2/- per stone for oats last week-end, but the County Louth farmers, even though it is now coming up to Christmas, got no such announcement.

There is a new version of the Grace Before Meals down in County Louth at the moment. They say that the East Donegal farmers' Grace Before Meals runs something like this: "Some have oats but have no votes and so they have no market, but we have votes and so can sell our oats and let the Lord be thanked".

Mr. Davin

Where did you get that?

Acting Minister for Agriculture (Dr. O'Higgins)

Do not ask any questions. He knows how to buy votes better than any of you.

Mr. Aiken

I must say that the present attempt of the deputy Minister for Agriculture to buy votes in Donegal is frightfully crude and amateurish. He has forgotten the old tricks they had a long time ago. When the deputy Minister spoke here about giving a price for oats, he did not say that he was going to give it to the East Donegal farmers alone. He gave us to understand that he was going to correct the ill-effects of the policy of the Minister for whom he was deputising and give a reasonable price for oats all round, to every farmer who had oats to sell in any part of the country. When the Minister for Agriculture asked the farmers of the Twenty-Six Counties last spring to grow oats and promised they would get a remunerative price, he did not confine the promise of a remunerative price to the East Donegal farmers, and, all over the country, farmers, acting on his advice, changed from wheat to oats. They dropped 63,000 acres of wheat and grew an additional 57,000 acres of oats.

On 3rd March, the Minister for Agriculture said:—"I ask you to do all you can to increase the area planted in barley, oats and potatoes. For each of these three commodities, there will be a certain and profitable market all next year." He put in several advertisements to the same effect— grow more oats, increase the acreage of oats and you will get a remunerative price; and some of these advertisements he wound up with:—"We'll show them." They certainly have shown us. The country has been shown that we are to borrow and pay interest for 50 years on an extra 5,000,000 dollars in order to buy the wheat we could have produced ourselves if the Minister for Agriculture had let the wheat policy ride. If we had these 63,000 extra acres of wheat, they would have saved the borrowing of 5,000,000 dollars, and we would not have had this great surplus of oats which is bursting the farmers' barns at present.

The deputy Minister for Agriculture promised when the motion of no confidence was brought in here that he was going to do something about it. According to this advertisement, what he proposes to do in East Donegal is to offer to farmers 2/- a stone or 28/- a barrel for best oats. I understand that there are some people up there who have been corn buyers for a long time. They did not get the right yet to offer even the 2/- per stone. However, it is alleged that the 2/- per stone will only be for oats bushelling 40 lbs., that for oats bushelling 39 lbs. it will be 1/8, and for oats bushelling 38 lbs. 1/4. I should like the Minister to confirm or correct these figures.

The method which the Government are adopting in relation to this matter was, of course, subject to very severe condemnation from the Minister for Agriculture himself. He said down in Waterford on 17th September:—

"Price fixation for farmers' crops means crop control and crop control means inspectors pushing farmers about and dictating to them how to run their own business. If the farmers want that, they must get a new Minister for Agriculture because I will not give them inspectors and control."

Perhaps it was because he would not give them inspectors and control that he went off and left the deputy Minister for Agriculture to carry the baby.

The deputy Minister for Agriculture seems prepared to give the farmers plenty of inspectors and control if necessary. Nothwithstanding the fact that the Minister for Lands was boasting here last week that the Minister for Agriculture had taken inspectors off the backs of the farmers and left them free, we had an advertisement appearing in the same paper from the Department asking for six further junior agricultural inspectors at salaries ranging from £335 to £725 per annum. If the deputy Minister for Agriculture does not smarten up when the boss comes home he may be using some of these inspectors to go round and inspect the books of a lot of farmers who are going to be broken by the dilatoriness of the Government in dealing with this problem.

We will take it for granted that the advertisement that appeared for East Donegal—even the one advertisement that appeared here in a Dublin paper was from an East Donegal merchant in Letterkenny — will be extended throughout the country, and that farmers will be given the offer of 2/- a stone for 40-lb. oats and 1/8 for 39-lbs. to the bushel, and so on; but what is going to happen to the farmers who were assured by Deputy Dillon that they were going to get a remunerative price for oats, and who have already sold their oats? The Minister for Agriculture himself, speaking recently, on the 10th October, just shortly before he skipped, said:

"In some districts last week, farmers sold oats at 21/- to 22/- per barrel to corn merchants... I advise farmers who received less than 26/- per barrel for their oats to go back to the man who bought them and ask him what he did with them."

That is quoted from the Irish Independent of the 10th October, 1948.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy is surely not quoting from the Independent.

Mr. Aiken

I am quoting from Deputy Davin's bible.

Mr. S. Collins

The Deputy is quoting from a Fianna Fáil journal for the Donegal election.

Mr. Aiken

I want to know from the deputy Minister for Agriculture what he is going to do for the farmers throughout the country who sold their oats at 21/- to 22/- per barrel and who will now—we hope—see their neighbours getting 28/- a barrel. The Minister for Agriculture was asked on a dozen occasions by a dozen different deputations in various parts of the country—some of them approached him in his own Departmental rooms here— asking him to put a floor under the price of oats, to live up to the promise he made that they would get a remunerative price for all the oats they would sell. They beseeched him not to break his bond, but he refused, and in despair, with threatening notices to pay up their debts, a number of farmers, as the Minister for Agriculture pointed out, sold their oats at 21/- to 22/- per barrel. Now farmers, we suppose, will get 28/- for oats that are no better. What is going to happen the difference? Has the Government any scheme for recouping the farmers who sold their oats under value, because of the pressure of their creditors?

Mr. Sweetman

And because of the ring of the merchants.

Mr. Aiken

The ring of the merchants? This is playing into the merchants hands who bought the oats——

Mr. Sweetman

Nonsense.

Mr. Aiken

——at 21/-, and now oats are worth 28/-, according to this here. Why did the Government keep this scheme back to this time of the year? It reminds me of what happened in 1931, when German oats were allowed to come in here at 5/- a barrel and drive our farmers to despair. We had a by-election in Kildare, and the night before the election, the then Minister for Agriculture, a Cumann na nGaedheal man, went down to the farmers in South Kildare and said: "If you want a tariff on oats, I will give you a tariff on oats." He gave them a tariff on oats, but gave it to them in the neck. The tariff did not come into operation until November, until the farmers had sold their oats. Now we have the same game repeated, when the farmers are being offered a floor of 28/- a barrel for 40-lb. oats, after most of them, and those who were hardest hit and in greatest need, had already sold their oats.

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy cannot see as many oat stacks as I saw in Donegal.

Mr. Aiken

There are oat stacks in Donegal and a lot of straw stacks, too, and it is where the straw stacks are that I am interested. I am interested in the person who was forced by circumstances to sell his oats at what the Minister said was a cut-throat price of 21/- to 22/- per barrel.

We know the Minister for Agriculture wants to drive the people from tillage. He believes in the utmost efficiency, the utmost output per man year. He will get that with the one man driving the bullocks. Undoubtedly, this upset to the tillage farmers, who trusted him that he was giving them a guaranteed price for oats, is going to disgust them with the growing of tillage crops and probably drive them out of them. More people will be added to the unemployment queues and to the queues lining up to get sailing tickets.

I hope that the deputy Minister for Agriculture will indicate, in replying, that the advertisements that appeared in the East Donegal papers last week-end will appear in all other papers throughout the country this week-end. It is only a couple of weeks before Christmas, and the farmers who may want to sell oats in order to get some cash for that period should know where they stand. I take it that the Government is hardly going to stand over their initial step, and confine the giving of a price for oats to the farmers in East Donegal. It may have had some effect in getting them some support up there, but, after all, they must look to the time when they will be seeking votes in constituencies other than East Donegal. If they are going to do something about this situation, let them do it quickly. Let them make an announcement that this arrangement is going to obtain all over the country, that wherever farmers have oats for sale they will be bought at this figure. Also, I want them to make some announcements to the farmers who have sold their oats at 21/- or 22/- per barrel, and say what the Minister is going to offer them, to make it up to them.

Minister for Defence (Acting Minister for Agriculture)(Dr. O'Higgins)

I have listened to a rather empty and foolish speech.

Deputy Connolly rose.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is usual to give the Minister ten minutes to reply and it is now 10.20.

Mr. Connolly

I shall just take about two minutes. I was interested in what Deputy Aiken brought before the House, and there are some questions that occur to me which I think are very relevant to this matter. I thought his case was based upon an alleged discrimination against Louth in favour of East Donegal. So far as this House is concerned, I think we would be more intimately concerned in the matter if we knew by whom these advertisements were issued. He first talked about three advertisements being issued in East Donegal and he said later that according to these advertisements the Minister offered certain prices for oats. I should like to know from the Minister or from Deputy Aiken whether these advertisements were issued officially by the Department of Agriculture or whether they were issued by the merchants.

Mr. Aiken

By the merchants.

Mr. Connolly

Well then it appears to be a case of business-like initiative on their part.

Mr. Aiken

They were buying up on behalf of the Government.

Mr. Connolly

Whether they did it on behalf of the Government or on their own initiative, private profit would be the more compelling motive in their case. In regard to Louth, the Deputy mentioned that there were a number of producers who had oats to sell there and that, though they were offering the oats for sale, nothing had happened. I should like to know from the Minister what is the surplus quantity of oats in Louth which would be available for sale to these dealers and how many agents there would be available now to handle the surplus oats about which Deputy Aiken spoke. Finally, I should like to know if there are in Louth any dealers who have premises and equipment capable of handling these oats, whether they are eligible to be appointed as agents in the same manner as merchants in East Donegal, whether they would fall into the category of appointed agents, whether they would be appointed by the Government, and whether they can purchase oats at the same price as in Donegal.

Dr. O'Higgins

I listened to Deputy Aiken with a considerable amount of amusement. I have been following the Deputy's activities for the last few weeks. Three weeks ago himself and his colleagues were capering round Donegal and shedding bitter tears before the farmers of Donegal because there was nobody to buy their oats and because the bottom had fallen out of the market for oats. That was three weeks ago. To-day we are to be lampooned, and for what? Because we are buying oats in Donegal and because we prevented the bottom falling out of the market.

Mr. Aiken

In Donegal?

Dr. O'Higgins

In Donegal and in Louth and in every county in Ireland. Now, I want to put it to the House that I am not dealing with an immature junior who is in this House a day or two. I am confronted with a man who has held Ministerial position for 16 years too long, an old Deputy who is in a position to know how to get information and where to get it. We are to believe like an innocent lot of children that if he wants to learn anything on behalf of the farmers of Louth, the only way to get information is by buying all the provincial papers and searching them for advertisements. It never struck Simple Simon to lift up the telephone and ring up the Minister, the Minister's private secretary or the secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister has not explained——

Dr. O'Higgins

Now let the little Rathmines boy sit down. It never struck the Deputy to address a Parliamentary question to the Minister to find out if agents had been appointed only in Donegal. It is true that an enterprising merchant of Donegal rushed into print because of the Deputy's speeches saying that there was no market for oats, and he advertised for oats. It is equally true that a merchant in Waterford and a merchant in Wicklow did the same, and, if the Deputy were concerned about the farmers in Louth, surely he should make it his business to find out if anybody had been appointed in County Louth.

Mr. Aiken

There were no advertisements.

Dr. O'Higgins

The fact of the matter is that Louth is the smallest county in Ireland and Donegal is one of the largest. Three agents have been appointed in County Donegal and two in County Louth. I am going to tell the Deputy something about the county which he so blatantly misrepresents. If he were representing Louth in any kind of competent or adequate manner, if he were perturbed about the nonpurchase of oats in Louth, surely it would be his duty and responsibility to ascertain whether anybody had been appointed to buy oats in Louth.

Mr. MacEntee

Why were advertisements not issued?

Dr. O'Higgins

Now wait a moment.

Mr. MacEntee

Answer the question.

Dr. O'Higgins

For the benefit of the House, I am going to read out a list of the agents so far appointed for this purpose. They are:—

Carlow—Messrs. Michael Sheill and Son, Bagenalstown.

Clare—Messrs. M. Glynn and Sons, Kilrush.

Cork—Mitchelstown Co-operative Agricultural Society, Limited, Mitchelstown; Messrs. Furney McCay and Company, Limited, Buttevant; Messrs. T.E. Jacob and Company, Limited, Cork.

Donegal—Messrs. C. Kelly, Limited, Letterkenny; Messrs. R.J. Smith, Limited, Lifford.

I should like to hear of the third. The list goes on:—

Galway—Messrs. Garvey, Limited, Tuam.

Kerry—Messrs. R. McCowen and Sons, Limited, Tralee.

Kildare—Messrs. Minch Norton and Company, Limited, Athy.

Kilkenny—Messrs. M.L. Potter, Limited, High Street, Kilkenny.

Meath-Mr. P.J. Nulty, Ashbourne.

Offaly—Messrs. P. and H. Egan, Limited, Tullamore; Messrs. D.E. Williams, Limited, Tullamore; Messrs F.A. Waller and Company, Limited, Banagher.

Tipperary—Messrs. W.W. Warnock, 38 Dame Street, Dublin (Roscrea premises); Mr. Frank McGrath, Nenagh.

Waterford—Messrs. Dungarvan Co-operative Creamery Society, Limited, Dungarvan.

Wexford—Messrs. Loc Garmain Co-operative Agricultural Society, Limited, Wexford; Messrs. J.J. Stafford, Limited, Wexford; Messrs. Traynors, Limited, Wexford; Messrs. J. Bolger and Company, Limited, Ferns; Messrs. Shelbourne Co-operative Society, Limited, Campile.

Wicklow—Messrs. P.J. Hopkins and Sons, Wicklow; Messrs. E. Morrin and Sons, Limited, Baltinglass.

Louth—Dolan's Stores, Ardee.

Arrangements are being made with Messrs. McGee of Ardee.

If the Deputy knows of any merchant in Dundalk, in Drogheda or anywhere in Louth who, No.1, has storage accommodation, and No.2, has drying facilities, that particular merchant will be added to the list.

Mr. Davin

What about Rank?

Mr. Aiken

What about the farmers who sold at 21/-?

Dr. O'Higgins

The Deputy is annoyed because oats is being bought, not because it is not being bought. He started off by saying that the only place where we were buying oats through the merchants was in East Donegal. No.1 statement was completely false and No.2 statement was thoroughly false. His whole attitude and presentation of the case were disgracefully and blatantly dishonest.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until Thursday, 2nd December, at 3 p.m.